Great Decisions: Experts Visit UT to Discuss Foreign Policy Issues

KNOXVILLE — The Great Decisions Program, coordinated by the Center for International Education and funded by the Ready for the World initiative, will bring five speakers from around the country to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, this semester to address our nation’s most pressing foreign policy issues.

The series will kick off with Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., speaking about “The Global Financial Crisis” at 7 p.m. on Feb. 23 in the Great Room of the International House.

The following three lectures in the series, all to be held at 7 p.m. in the Great Room of the International House, are:

March 16 – John Marks, president and founder of Search for Common Ground, Washington, D.C.,”Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution.”

March 23 – Edward Miguel, professor of economics and director of the Center of Evaluation for Global Action at the University of California, Berkeley, “Global Crime.”

April 20 – David Michael Lampton, dean of faculty, George and Sadie Hyman Professor, and director of China studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, “U.S.-China Security Relations.”

The last lecture will be held in the Baker Center:

April 28 – Retired Ambassador Barbara K. Bodine, lecturer in public and international policy, director and scholar in the Nation’s Service Initiative, The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, “The Persian Gulf.”

Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., is the author of several books, including “False Profits: Recovering From the Bubble Economy,” “Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy,” “The United States Since 1980,” “The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer,” “Social Security: The Phony Crisis” (with Mark Weisbrot), and “The Benefits of Full Employment” (with Jared Bernstein). He was the editor of “Getting Prices Right: The Debate over the Consumer Price Index,” which was a winner of a Choice Book Award as one of the outstanding academic books of the year.

He appears frequently on TV and radio programs, including CNN, CBS News, PBS NewsHour, and National Public Radio. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian Unlimited (UK), and his blog, Beat the Press, features commentary on economic reporting. His analyses have appeared in many major publications, including the Atlantic Monthly, the Boston Review, the Financial Times, and the New York Times.

Baker’s own blog, Beat the Press, features commentary on economic reporting.

Baker received his bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College and his doctorate in economics from the University of Michigan.